S04E08 – Government and Disasters and Is Trump a Fascist?

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two topics. First, we discuss whether the government should help people rebuild if their homes are in zones that will continuously flood, burn down from forest fires, or be destroyed by natural disasters. We all agree that the government should not and that people should assume that risk at their peril. The government’s role should be to help those who were caught by surprise at no fault of their own. We then turn to Trump’s recent comments about “enemies within” and using the military to imprison political opponents and use that as a launching point to discuss whether Trump meets the criteria for being a fascist. Based on his rhetoric, Ryan is convinced that he wants to be a fascist. Tom and Josh, also based on his rhetoric, agree that he leans toward wanting to be a fascist dictator. But Tom and Josh insist that his actions are more important than his words and they think the checks and balances in the US will prevent Trump from becoming the fascist he wants to be. Josh even promised to mobilize with his guns should Trump start locking up political opponents or college professors without trials. We end with predictions of the election outcome and all lean toward Trump winning.